Conducting Pipeline Interviews
There are two keys to conducting Pipeline Interviews. First, make sure to interview accounts at a variety of stages in the pipeline. The reasons why prospects don’t progress past the first meeting usually concern the fundamental fit of the product while prospects that drop out later in the pipeline typically don’t close due to issues related to value proposition. You have to conduct interviews with accounts at different stages to get the whole picture.
Second, never interview live prospects. Since they haven’t yet fallen out of the pipeline, you don’t know for sure that they aren’t going to buy. Therefore, they aren’t reliable data points as to why prospects don’t buy. In addition, the last thing you want to do is interfere with a sales opportunity.
To read the full White Paper, please go to Semaphore News and click on the May 3, 2010 link titled – White Paper – Market Due Diligence